Joyce DiDonato News

As director of the company's apprentice program since 2005, David Holloway is a veritable fount of knowledge

The Dallas Opera is delighted to announce the winner of the 2017 "Maria Callas Debut Artist of the Year" Award: luminous Italian-American soprano Marina Costa-Jackson.

Opera Saratoga's Artistic and General Director Lawrence Edelson announced today complete casting for the three exciting new productions that will comprise the company's 2017 Summer Festival, which will build on the company's commitment to producing masterpieces from the operatic cannon, important American works, and works in which dance plays an integral role. In addition, a wide variety of free and ticketed concert events will be presented from May 28th through July 16th at venues throughout the region.

Opera Saratoga's Artistic and General Director Lawrence Edelson announced today complete casting for the three exciting new productions that will comprise the company's 2017 Summer Festival, which will build on the company's commitment to producing masterpieces from the operatic cannon, important American works, and works in which dance plays an integral role. In addition, a wide variety of free and ticketed concert events will be presented from May 28th through July 16th at venues throughout the region.

The George London Foundation for Singers has been honoring, supporting, and presenting the finest young opera singers in the U.S. and Canada since 1971.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) today announced plans for Seeking the Human Spirit (STHS), a six-year multidisciplinary initiative designed to highlight the universal spiritual themes raised in opera and to expand and deepen Houstonians' connections to opera and to art. Launching in the fall of 2017, STHS comprises three mainstage operas each season-one of which will be a new work-united by a single theme, and complementary projects by HGO and partner organizations created to enhance and enrich the community's experience of the themes. Some of these activities will be available to the public; others will offer personal access to opera and HGO artists and staff for groups such as hospital patients, women who are rebuilding their lives after homelessness, and young people pursuing interfaith projects. 

Ranking among today's leading conductors, Carlo Rizzi's vast repertoire ranges from the foundation works of the operatic and symphonic canon to rarities by Bellini, Cimarosa and Donizetti. He is in high demand as a guest artist at the world's most prestigious venues and festivals, not least for the insight and integrity of his musicianship and the visceral energy and psychological depths of his interpretations.

Harry Bicket and the English Concert returned for its just-about-annual Handel-fest at Carnegie Hall with a concert performance of the well-loved ARIODANTE by Handel, starring the even better-loved mezzo Joyce DiDonato. The result was some awfully fine singing--particularly from DiDonato in fine dramatic form--although the pretty disastrous casting of one of the principals (at least from my point of view) brought the production down from the lofty heights it could have attained.

Carnegie Hall today announced that soprano Joélle Harvey must regrettably withdraw from her role as Dalinda in Handel's Ariodante with Harry Bicket and The English Concert scheduled for Sunday, April 30 at 2:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage due to ill health.

In the third of Alan Gilbert's final four subscription weeks as New York Philharmonic Music Director, he will lead an enhanced concert production of Wagner's Das Rheingold. Soloists include bass-baritone Eric Owens as Wotan, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as Fricka (in her New York Philharmonic debut), baritone Christopher Purves as Alberich (debut), tenor Russell Thomas as Loge, mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor as Erda, bass Morris Robinson as Fasolt (debut), bass Stephen Milling as Fafner (debut), soprano Rachel Willis-Sorensen as Freia (debut), tenor Brian Jagde as Froh (debut), bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as Donner (debut), tenor Peter Bronder as Mime (debut), soprano Jennifer Zetlan as Woglinde, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano as Wellgunde, and mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford as Flosshilde. The enhanced concert production will be directed by Louisa Muller with costume design - featuring character-based treatment of modern concert attire - by David C. Woolard. The performances will take place Thursday, June 1, 2017, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, June 3 at 8:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m.

Richard Tucker Music Foundation named soprano Nadine Sierra as winner of 2017 Richard Tucker Award; simultanously, it announced its roster of study and career grant recipients.

Soprano Nadine Sierra - who at 28 years old is already establishing herself as a fixture at many of the world's leading opera houses, including those of Paris, Milan, Berlin, and New York - was named today by the Richard Tucker Music Foundation as the winner of the 2017 Richard Tucker Award.

On Sunday and Monday, April 9 and 10, 2017 at 7:30pm, Works & Process at the Guggenheim presents performance highlights and moderated discussion with Grammy-nominated American Composer Mason Bates on his first opera, The (Re)volution of Steve Jobs prior to its world premiere with Santa Fe Opera. 

In connection with its twenty-year commitment to address a long-standing gender imbalance at podiums throughout the opera world, The Dallas Opera is delighted to announce that this year's annual reunion of the Fellows of the Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors at The Dallas Opera will take place at the famed War Memorial in San Francisco, California, in partnership with the San Francisco Opera.

American Lyric Theater (ALT) and The Morgan Library & Museum present ALT Alumni: Composers & Librettists in Concert on Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 3pm at The Morgan Library & Museum in the Gilder Lehrman Hall, 225 Madison Avenue, NYC. 

After a lavishly praised star turn in Washington National Opera's revival of Dead Man Walking this winter, Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Susan Graham turns to a U.S. tour in April of her equally successful and wide-ranging recital program, “Frauenliebe und -leben: Variations,” inspired by and centered on Schumann's iconic song cycle, with longtime recital partner Malcolm Martineau. She also joins a cast of the world's greatest opera luminaries to celebrate the Metropolitan Opera House's 50 Years at Lincoln Center in an Anniversary Gala; performs selections from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Met Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen in Carnegie Hall; and sings Berlioz's La mort de Cléopâtre, a staple of her signature French repertoire, with the San Antonio Symphony.

Music Director Alan Gilbert begins his final weeks by leading the New York Philharmonic in Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. The program juxtaposes the tragedy and optimism of human experience through Schoenberg's depiction of the horror of the Holocaust and the message of hope, brotherhood, and joy in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw will feature Gabriel Ebert as narrator (in his Philharmonic debut) and the men of the Westminster Symphonic Choir, directed by Joe Miller. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony will feature soprano Camilla Tilling, mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack (debut), tenor Joseph Kaiser (debut), bass-baritone Eric Owens, and the Westminster Symphonic Choir, directed by Joe Miller. The performances will take place Wednesday, May 3, 2017, at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, May 4 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, May 5 at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday, May 6 at 8:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, May 9 at 7:30 p.m. The program will be presented without intermission.

On Monday April 3rd, at 12:30 PM, the New York classical music series "PREformances with Allison Charney" will present Metropolitan Opera stars' tenor Todd Wilander and countertenor Jeffrey Mandelbaum in a scintillating concert of arias and duets from masterworks by Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi.  The program will also feature contemporary classical compositions for voice, cello and piano by Michael Ching and Moshe Knoll, performed by musicians of the ARK Trio, soprano Allison Charney, cellist Kajsa William-Olsson and pianist Reiko Uchida. Also featured will be PREformances collaborative pianist Craig Ketter. The concert takes place at the JCC Manhattan, home to the intimate 150 seat Goldman-Sonnenfeldt Auditorium and the Lambert Center for Arts + Ideas.

On Sunday, April 30 at 2:00 p.m., Harry Bicketconducts Handel's Ariodante at Carnegie Hall with acclaimed baroque orchestra The English Concert. In this concert presentation of Handel's brilliantly melodic work, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato performs the title role joined by sopranos Christiane Karg (Ginevra) and Joélle Harvey (Dalinda), contralto Sonia Prina (Polinesso), tenors David Portillo(Lurcanio) and Tyson Miller (Odoardo), with bass-baritone Matthew Brook (King of Scotland).